Fritz Pollard Jr. (February 18, 1915 – February 15, 2003) was an American athlete who competed mainly in the

110 metre hurdles The 110 metres hurdles, or 110-metre hurdles, is a hurdling track and field event for men. It is included in the athletics programme at the Summer Olympic Games. The female counterpart is the 100 metres hurdles. As part of a racing event, ten hurd ...

Biography

While a student at the

University of North Dakota The University of North Dakota (also known as UND or North Dakota) is a public research university in Grand Forks, North Dakota. It was established by the Dakota Territorial Assembly in 1883, six years before the establishment of the state of ...

, he was a running back for the

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

team. He was "picked All North Central Conference in 1937 and 1938, and was a Collier's Magazine Little All-America selection in football in 1938."University of North Dakota
/ref> He also competed as a member of the university's varsity boxing team. Pollard competed for the United States in the

1936 Summer Olympics The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: ''Spiele der XI. Olympiade'') and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi-sp ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

in the 110 meter hurdles where he won the bronze medal."Frederick Pollard Jr., 87; Medalist in 110-Meter Hurdles in '36 Olympics"
''Los Angeles Times''. Retrieved 2015-09-10. In 2016, the 1936 Olympic journey of the eighteen Black American athletes, including Pollard, was documented in the film ''

Olympic Pride, American Prejudice ''Olympic Pride, American Prejudice'' is a 2016 American documentary film written and directed by Deborah Riley Draper. Dr. Amy Tiemann, Michael A. Draper, and Blair Underwood (who also narrated the film) were executive producers. The film premier ...

''. Pollard graduated from UND with a bachelor's degree majoring in education. He went on to earn a law degree from the

John Marshall Law School (Chicago) University of Illinois Chicago School of Law is a public law school in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1899, the school offers programs for both part-time and full-time students, with both day and night classes available, and offers January enrol ...

. He also served in the U.S. Army as a special services officer during World War II." Some years after he war, he became a Foreign Service officer and retired in 1981 as the director of the State Department's overseas schools for US citizens. Pollard was a member of

Alpha Phi Alpha Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. () is the oldest intercollegiate historically African American fraternity. It was initially a literary and social studies club organized in the 1905–1906 school year at Cornell University but later evolved int ...

fraternity. Pollard's father was Fritz Pollard Sr., the first African American head coach in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

. He is survived by one of his two children, Fritz D. Pollard III (Cheryl Pollard- deceased) and two grandchildren Meredith Kaye Russell and Marcus Stephan Pollard.

References

''Greek bibliography'': Andreou,Evangelos: ''"The star of champion shone..."'' Ed. EUARCE 2011 (''"Frederick "Fritz" Pollard" p.30'') Ευάγγελος Ανδρέου, ''Το αστέρι του πρωταθλητή άναψε... / ο βαλκανιονίκης του μεσοπολέμου Γιάννης Σκιαδάς'', EUARCE 2011 (''"Φρεντερίκ Πολάρντ/Frederick "Fritz" Pollard" σ.30'')

External links

History of the Olympic Trials
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University of North Dakota
1915 births 2003 deaths American male hurdlers African-American male track and field athletes Athletes (track and field) at the 1936 Summer Olympics North Dakota Fighting Hawks football players Olympic bronze medalists for the United States in track and field University of North Dakota alumni Sportspeople from Springfield, Massachusetts Medalists at the 1936 Summer Olympics 20th-century African-American sportspeople 21st-century African-American people {{US-athletics-Olympic-medalist-stub